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Genetic Evaluation of Behaviour in Dogs

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Genetic Evaluation of Behaviour in Dogs Genetic Evaluation of Behaviour in Dogs Per Arvelius Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics Uppsala Doctoral Thesis Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Uppsala 2014 Acta Universitatis agriculturae Sueciae 2014:59 Cover: Ebba (photo: Malin Wijk) ISSN 1652-6880 ISBN (print version) 978-91-576-8066-2 ISBN (electronic version) 978-91-576-8067-9 © 2014 Per Arvelius, Uppsala Print: SLU Service/Repro, Uppsala 2014 Genetic Evaluation of Behaviour in Dogs Abstract A dog's behavioural characteristics are important for the dog, for the dog owner and for society as a whole. Behavioural traits can be changed by breeding, but to be effective when selecting breeding animals, good methods for measuring behaviour are essential. The aim of this thesis was to provide information on a number of dog behavioural measurement methods regarding their potential to be used for genetic evaluation: the Herding Trait Characterisation, the Swedish and Norwegian English Setter field trials, the Swedish Armed Forces temperament test, the Dog Mentality Assessment (DMA), and an extended version of the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire. The aim was also to advance our understanding of factors affecting the usefulness of behavioural measurements for breeding purposes. Average heritabilities for behavioural variables (items) within measurement method ranged from 0.1 to 0.3, and the items were markedly influenced by systematic environ- mental effects. All studied measurement methods can be used for selection of breeding animals, but selection based on individual performance is suboptimal. Using BLUP breeding values would substantially increase accuracy of selection and the potential genetic progress and is therefore recommended. Rough Collie results from DMA showed strong genetic correlations with important everyday life traits as described by dog owners in the questionnaire. Therefore, in order to improve everyday life behaviour in Rough Collie, DMA breeding values for relevant traits should be used for selection. The results indicated that from a heritability perspective, behavioural measurements should be objective rather than subjective, and neutral rather than passing value judgments. Collaboration between countries within breed is also advised because a joint genetic evaluation increases the number of selection candidates, and may also increase breeding value accuracies rather dramatically, as was shown for the English Setter field trial results from Sweden and Norway. For half of the studied methods, the measured items were summarized into composite traits. Heritability estimates for composite traits were higher than the average of the items used for creating these traits. Because the composite traits also can be expected to be more stable over time and between situations, it would be advisable to use them as selection traits. Keywords: behaviour, breeding, dog, genetic evaluation, genetic progress, herding trait, heritability, hunting trait, selection, temperament Author’s address: Per Arvelius, SLU, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, P.O. Box 7023, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: Per.Arvelius@ slu.se Ibland oförnuftige kreatur äger hunden onekligen de snilles gåfwor, som närmast likna förnuft. Han är mera läracktig, än något annat djur, han kan läras gå ut då naturen kräfwer, genom sin waksamhet bewara hus och gård från främmande kreatur, förstår til en del hwad man teknar och talar med honom, gifwer tillkjänna när något owanligit eller fara är å färde, om tjufwar eller andra obekanta människjor annalkas: Han kan ock skilja främmande kreatur från sin Husbondas, m. m. Carl von Linné Contents List of Publications 7 Abbreviations 8 1 Introduction 9 2 Background 11 2.1 Breeding 11 2.1.1 Breeding goal 12 2.1.2 Recording 12 2.1.3 Genetic evaluation, selection and mating 13 2.1.4 Genetic progress 14 2.2 Dog behaviour and breeding 14 2.2.1 Dog behaviour is important 14 2.2.2 Dog breeding 16 2.3 Main issues 17 3 Aims of the thesis 21 4 Summary of the studies 23 4.1 Behavioural data 23 4.2 Statistical methods 27 4.3 Main findings 28 4.3.1 Genetic and environmental factors affecting behaviour 28 4.3.2 Genetic correlations between temperament test result and everyday life behaviour 30 4.3.3 Score sheet structure 30 4.3.4 Summarizing correlated measurements into composite scores 31 4.3.5 Different strategies to define and compute composite trait scores32 4.3.6 Joint genetic evaluation 32 5 General discussion 33 5.1 The analysed behavioural measurement methods can be used in genetic evaluations 33 5.1.1 Increased genetic progress 33 5.1.2 Comparison with previous studies 34 5.1.3 Correlations between measured traits and breeding goal traits 35 5.2 Recording methods 36 5.3 Summarizing measured items into composite traits 38 5.3.1 Why composite traits? 38 5.3.2 Two different concepts of computing composite trait scores 39 5.3.3 Composite trait definition based on phenotype or on genotype? 40 5.4 Genetic evaluation 40 5.4.1 Systematic environmental effects 40 5.4.2 Unexplained environmental variation 42 5.4.3 Cooperation between countries 43 5.4.4 Alternatives to selection on BLUP breeding values? 44 6 Conclusions 47 7 Future challenges 49 8 Avelsvärdering för beteende hos hund 53 8.1 Bakgrund 53 8.2 Sammanfattning av studierna 56 8.3 Kortfattade slutsatser 58 References 59 Acknowledgements 65 List of Publications This thesis is based on the work contained in the following papers, referred to by Roman numerals in the text: I Arvelius, P., Malm, S., Svartberg, K. and Strandberg, E. (2013). Measuring herding behavior in Border collie – effect of protocol structure on usefulness for selection. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research 8, 9-18. II Arvelius, P. and Klemetsdal, G. (2013). How Swedish breeders can substantially increase the genetic gain for the English Setter’s hunting traits. Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics 130, 142-153. III Arvelius, P., Strandberg, E. and Fikse, W.F. (2014). The Swedish Armed Forces temperament test gives information on genetic differences among dogs. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2014.06.008. IV Arvelius, P., Eken Asp, H., Fikse, W.F., Strandberg, E. and Nilsson, K. (2014). Genetic analysis of a temperament test as a tool to select against everyday life fearfulness in Rough Collie. Journal of Animal Science 92, 4843-4855. The papers are reproduced with the permission of the publishers. 7 Abbreviations BLUP best linear unbiased prediction BR behavioural rating C-BARQ Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire DMA Dog Mentality Assessment EBV estimated breeding value ES FT English Setter field trial FS factor score HTC Herding Trait Characterisation SAF TT Swedish Armed Forces temperament test SR subjective rating SS summated scale 8 1 Introduction A dog's behavioural characteristics are important for the dog, for the dog owner and for society as a whole. Because behavioural traits are heritable and can be changed by breeding, they should be included as an important part of the breeding goal. Within a dog breed, the breeders – each of them usually with only a small production of puppies – relatively independently select which dogs to use for breeding. The breeding goal may differ between breeders and thus genetic progress is often slow for many traits. In livestock breeding, effective methods for evaluating animals genetically, and to select which individuals to use for breeding, have been developed and extensively used for several decades with great success. Instead of selecting breeding animals based on their phenotypic performance, these methods allow for estimating an animal’s breeding value by adjusting the phenotype for environmental factors and by taking information on relatives into account. This makes it possible to be more accurate in selecting breeding animals for the genetic qualities they will contribute to the offspring. In dog breeding, however, people still today mainly practice phenotypic selection. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate the prospects for improving dog behaviour by breeding. Dog breeders would potentially benefit substantially in terms of faster genetic progress for important behavioural traits, if modern methods for genetic evaluation were applied. For this to function well, it is essential to have good methods for measuring the traits of interest. In this thesis, a number of dog behavioural measurement methods were evaluated for their potential to be used for genetic evaluation, and with the purpose of advancing our understanding of factors affecting the usefulness of behavioural measurements for breeding purposes. 9 10 2 Background 2.1 Breeding Animal breeding is about choosing the genetically best individuals as parents, and thereby bring about genetically improved offspring generations. The structure of a breeding program can differ between species and populations. But even if there are differences in, for example, how systematic or advanced programs are, or how much emphasis is put on the various parts, the basic components can be expected to be more or less the same (Figure 1). There is a breeding goal, towards which the breeders strive to change the population of animals. To do this, animal phenotypes of traits of interest for the breeding goal are recorded. The animals available for breeding are ranked with the purpose to identify the genetically best individuals and the animals to be used as parents are selected and mated to produce the next generation. Then the process starts again with DEFINITION OF BREEDING GOAL recording the phenotypes of the offspring and so on. RECORDING If successful, this will lead to a genetic progress, meaning that each off- GENETIC EVALUATION spring generation becomes genetically better than its SELECTION OF BREEDING ANIMALS parent generation. Usually, the intention is to achieve the genetic progress with a MATING SYSTEM limited increase in inbreed- ing level.
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